2nd Year Hops Questions

This will be the 2nd year for my hops. A Cascade that did great last year and a Mt. Hood that didn't. So here are my questions:

I have both plants in their own half whiskey barrels with the same soil I originally filled them with last year. It had some fertilizer in it, and I also added another mild fertilizer. Do I need to re-fertilize them? My Cascade hops have already sprouted about 20 two-inch shoots so they seem very healthy, and I don't know if they need fertilizer or if it will over-do it for them.

My Mt. Hoods however have not been so lucky...After a great first couple months of growing last year the plant stunted it's growth at about 3 feet and seemed to flood a lot. This year the plant has also showed no signs of life even though last year it was first to sprout. It still seems to soak up A LOT of water, unlike the Cascade, and I'm worried that it may have died. Should I do anything to this?

1st. flood? did you not have drainage setup on those casks.
2nd. I say either fertilize or add good compost(aka natural fertilizer) at regular intervals.
3rd. It is still early give it some more time. but if you feel u must you can carefull try digging it up and see what it looks like.

Yeah they dopn't have drainage. I keep saying I should drill a few holes in the bottom of them, but haven't gotten around to it. In the summer it's usually fairly sunny and a good balance of rain so I don't really have to water them and the sun usually dries up the excess water. It worked fine for my Cascade but for some reason the Mt. Hood seemed to hold a lot of its water, and coincidentally it's the hop that has seen the least amount of growth

I could be way off(and please someone correct me if i am) but i would say the fact that one holds more water than the other is not the hops species but rather the soil in the barrel. Whether u got the dirt at different times, compacted one more than the other I am not sure. However if both(assuming 2 barrels) are identical other than the variety of hops it does not sound logical to me that one"floods" and the other does not. Personally i say drill the holes eliminate the fear.

Well I filled both the barrels at the same time with the same mixture. The only thing I can really think of was originally the hop that seemed to hold water a lot was slightly in the shade for a kind of big portion of the day. Not complete shade, but some sporadic shade form another tree. I moved it now but I don;t know.

Are you watering already? I dont water till sometime in may ground here has enough in it from winter( sry forgot u are in planters might make a difference). If you are worried about no signs of life from the other u can A. wait longer(Iwould) or B. carefully dig it up and see if ther is life there still

I'm not watering right now and I really didn't water them much last year as we get enough rain in the summer. I'll probably wait a while longer, maybe I'll get some mild fertilizer later this week or next week or something and if still nothing happens then maybe I'll have to dig up the root and see what's going on or try replanting it